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Updated: June 18, 2025
It gave me welcome, and as I came into it on Monday morning at nine o'clock and was introduced to the pretty teacher of Delsarte, Miss Maida Craigen, whose smiling lips and big Irish-gray eyes made her beloved of all her pupils, I felt that my lonely life in Boston was ended.
In order to foster admiration for the old masters, Delsarte conceived the idea of publishing a collection of pieces taken from their works right and left, and, as a result, he created his Archives du Chant. He had special type made and the publication was a marvel of beautiful typography, correctness and good taste. At the beginning of each part was a cleverly harmonised passage of church music.
"You will have great responsibilities and a great deal to occupy your mind?" "Without doubt." "You will not have time to devote yourself to art?" "I fear not." "Eh bien!" said Delsarte, and we expected pearls to drop from his mouth, "eh bien! If ever I am fortunate enough to visit your country, I hope you will allow me to pay my most humble respects to you."
And Doctor Johnson said, "Sir, he does nothing else," thus anticipating James McNeil Whistler by more than a hundred years. But alas for the luckless Linlay, the Delsarte of his day, poor man! he used words not to be found in Johnson's Dictionary, and outdid Cassius in the quarrel-scene to the Brutus of Richard Brinsley.
It was extremely interesting to see him dissect one of Fontaine's fables or a passage from Racine, and to hear him explain why the accent should be on such a word or on such a syllable and not on another, to bring out the sense. Although this course was so instructive, few took it, for Delsarte was almost unknown to people.
On our upward flight I remarked to Mademoiselle that I wished Delsarte lived in other climes; but she was far too much out of breath to notice any such little joke as this. I saw no change either in him or in any of his surroundings. He told us that he had suffered many privations and deprivations while the siege was going on.
While Delsarte was preparing the way for the old French opera and above all for Gluck's works, another pioneer of musical evolution was working to form the taste of the Parisian public, but with an entirely different power and another effect. Seghers was the man. He played a great rôle and his memory should be honored. As his name indicates, Seghers was a Belgian.
In singing I always feel as if I were forcing my breath against my chest, and, just as in the exercises according to Delsarte you will find the chest leads in all physical movements, so in singing you should feel this firm support of the chest of the highest as well as the lowest notes. I have seen pupils, trying to master the art of breathing, holding themselves as rigidly as drum majors.
Very early in life people find out that a smile is a weapon, mighty to avail in all sorts of crises. Hence, we see the treacherous smile of the wily; the patronizing smile of the pompous; the obsequious smile of the flatterer; the cynical smile of the satirist. Very few of these have heard of Delsarte; but they outdo him on his own grounds.
The result lends expression to your voice. The lid of the piano was absent, and, to judge from the inside, I should say that the piano was the receptacle for everything that belonged to the Delsarte homestead. There were inkstands, pens, pencils, knives, wire, matches, toothpicks, half-smoked cigars, even remnants of his luncheon, which seemed to have been black bread and cheese, and dust galore.
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